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Going to the Mile High City was the perfect 65th birthday present for Karen Stevenson. She and her husband drove out of the Bible Belt to experience, for the first time, what it’s like to buy and smoke weed legally.

She wore a T-shirt featuring an image of María Sabina, a late-Mexican shaman, puffing on a joint — a shirt that, until this day, she never dared to wear outside her Cape Girardeau, Missouri, home.

“It’s kind of like being a part of history,”

she said Saturday, while waiting for a bus in front of a marijuana-themed sandwich shop. “I used to want to go to Amsterdam. Now I don’t have to.”

The Origin of the Term 420

The Stevensons are among the tens of thousands of visitors — by some estimates 80,000 — who’ve come to Denver to mark 420 (April 20), a date that’s emerged as a holiday among those steeped in cannabis culture.

Weed and a Tale of Two Cities.

Though the date has long been observed in Colorado, this is the first celebration since recreational sales of marijuana on New Year’s Day. (Recreational use became legal in late 2012.)

Replete with the Denver “420 Rally” in Civic Center Park, the High Times Cannabis Cup — an expo and a competition sponsored by the magazine — and a 420 concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre headlined by Snoop Dogg, the weekend has drawn the trappings one might expect. Dreadlocks. Tie-dye. T-shirts brandishing phrases like “Cheech & Chong for President.”

Those predictable, or stereotypical, images, however, only tell part of the story.

They don’t speak for the white-haired Mississippi man who looked like he’d walked out of a law firm on casual Friday. They don’t reflect what drew a Crohn’s disease patient from Missouri. Nor do they represent three older Texas women, one with her nails perfectly manicured in hot pink and her hair done just so, who advocate on behalf of seniors and are working to reform marijuana laws.

The crop is still an infant food industry in North America, after being legalized and adequately regulated in the late-1990s. However, it is appearing in an increasing number of human food and nutritional products.

Uduslivaia said hemp is well-positioned to grow.

Hemp protein, pea protein and brown rice protein have found a growing demand in the protein products area, which was once dominated by men and weight lifters. The revival of protein as a positive food element has allowed its market to expand beyond muscle-focused men to include young, health-conscious women.

Many women are keen to consume non-meat and non-dairy protein, so “alternative proteins” such as hemp are being included in more products.

“We … see a move away from milk-based protein,”

said Uduslivaia.

“Whey protein used to be the king of proteins, but this is no longer necessarily the case.”

Hemp is also moving into the dietary supplement and functional food markets because of its heart-healthy reputation and claims.

Hemp can claim heart-healthy properties because of its omega oil content, but Uduslivaia said an interesting development is the growing success of products that don’t push a particular benefit, instead presenting themselves as generally healthy.

The cross-functional benefits are often more attractive to consumers than a single-function approach.

Functional food sales have suffered in the last few years in North America, stagnating and even falling in some areas after strong growth in earlier years.

However, dietary supplements have been booming.

“It’s the dietary supplements that are seeing significant growth and are outpacing, in terms of growth, foods,”

said Uduslivaia.

Hemp is a small crop and has only a small share of the market, but Uduslivaia said it is on the right side of almost every trend. Alternative protein, non-animal, generally healthy products are all growing in popularity and demand.

Gone are the days of leading our children to believe that marijuana is as useless and harmful as heroin or crystal meth. Nowhere will that be more apparent than at this year’s McDonald’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Chicago.Good Intentions Medical Marijuana Services will be the first legal marijuana related business to join the ranks of well-known, established businesses in the parade’s 80 year history.

“It’s time to give up on the argument that marijuana has no known medical value”

explained Good Intentions founder and CEO, Tammy Jacobi.

“Now is the time to educate our children that there are many substances people can use to treat their debilitating conditions and medical marijuana is one of them”

With an emphasis on education and advocacy, Good Intentions has become a trusted name in medical marijuana services in Illinois and in Michigan. Good Intentions services include physician coordination and referrals, fingerprint background checks, official state forms assistance and verification of state required documentation. Jacobi added

“I am profoundly moved that our company continues to make a difference in patient’s lives. We’re also very proud of The State of Illinois for the hard work and dedication they’ve contributed in order to bring this program to life.”

Good Intentions Thanksgiving Day Parade float will emphasize the company’s history of “growing” with Illinois through the process of licensing medical marijuana patients. The float will feature a 12 foot banner with the theme “Growing With Illinois” and will be complete with a garden of flowers in bloom. According to Jacobi,

“just as plants grow and flower, the company has blossomed into an organization that provides hope for the most seriously ill citizens of Illinois. And when it comes to our children, let us not forget the shrewdness of Thomas Jefferson -Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.”

A company based in Waterloo, Ontario is building a hemp-based, hemp-fuelled aircraft that will have a much smaller carbon footprint than standard planes.

Derek Kesek plans to be flying on cloud 9 in the world’s first hemp plane next year!Kesek revealed at first people laughed when the former organic restaurant owner said he was going to build a plane made out of hemp.

“Can you smoke it, too?”

they asked jokingly.

“But, they’re not laughing at me now,”

the environmental activist told reporters last month.

Last month his Waterloo-based company, Hempearth, signed a contract with a Florida-based plane manufacturer to build an aircraft made almost entirely out of hemp.
A member of the cannabis plant family, hemp is a tall, green and leafy plant with a strong fibrous and thick stalk. It is used to make clothing, soap, rope, oil, food, construction materials and now, planes!
Kesek truly believes his hemp aircraft could revolutionize the world. —

“just like Steve Jobs did with his phones.”

“Because hemp is a versitile and sustainable crop that requires no pesticides or herbicides to grow, the plane would have a significantly smaller carbon footprint than that of standard planes.” he said.

“We are building this essentially from weeds from the garden. When nickel and other elements are taken, they can’t be put back.”

At least 75 per cent of Kesek’s plane — including its wings, seats, pillows and outer shell will be made from hemp, instead of fibreglass.
The four-seater jet will be the colour of natural hemp fibre, with a wingspan of 36 feet (12 metres).

Do you think Derek could be on to something?? Leave a comment express your thoughts.

I read a great article earlier this week and thought it would be a great story for our first post! It spoke about Canada’s small hemp industry. It’s growing like a weed (pun intended;), but still faces some obsticles because of its de-criminalized and potent cousin, marijuana.

A few weeks ago, farmers, scientists, health food experts, retailers and fashion designers met in Edmonton to celebrate hemp and discuss how to help products derived from the plant grow on world markets.

Executive director of the Canadian Hemp Trading Alliance, Kim Shukla, says production in this country is forecast to almost double by 2015.

$100 million annually

“That will translate to about $100 million to the Canadian economy,” she said from her farm near Steinbach, Man.

“Saskatchewan is by far the leading province, followed by Manitoba and Alberta.”

Both hemp and marijuana stem from the Cannabis sativa plant family, but hemp contains virtually none of the elements of the THC compound found in marijuana that makes people high.

The 200+ growers across the country are all licensed by Health Canada and can only plant seeds that have been approved by the federal government.

The health benefits of hemp are huge!

Hemp is filled with nutritious Omega 3 and 6 and is used to make breakfast cereals, pretzels, protein powders, salad dressings and lactose-free milk.

Fibre from the hardy plant is made into building products, paper and clothes. Hemp oil is used to make cosmetics.

Shukla said Canada’s main market for hemp products is the United States, where the federal government has been ‘iffy’ of approving cultivation of the plant because it looks similar to marijuana.

But U.S. officials have no problem with Canadian-grown hemp products. Demand for health food and other products derived from the plant is higher than ever.

“Everyone is much more conscious about their health,” she said. “That is a market that hasn’t even nearly reached what the potential is.”

The hemp business is straight-up respectable in Canada.

Do you support Canada’s hemp industry? If so, tell us how in the comments section.

Author: Neil Nate Turner
Source: CBC

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